


Last Queens of Thieves

by kosmonauttihai



Category: Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies), Jurassic Park: The Game, Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Animal Death, Animal Life, Dinosaur POV, Multi, Velociraptors (Jurassic Park), a fic about raptor feels now with even more raptor, hopeful ending from a certain perspective anyway, made of a lot of canon compliant sad and the occasional happy with a hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2019-10-27 01:45:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17757440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosmonauttihai/pseuds/kosmonauttihai
Summary: A brief history of Velociraptors running around Isla Nublar.





	1. June 12 1993, Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> The fic treats Jurassic Park: The Game (2011) as canon, at least for the most part, so I recommend having some knowledge of its events before reading.
> 
> Also, please have a look at the warnings in the tags in case you skipped them. I don't want to upset people who weren't prepared to be.

She is a day old.

She doesn't know that, not having seen the sun set and rise to mark the time, but she knows it's been a long time since the creatures who welcomed her into the world, who cleaned her, kept her warm, and fed her her first meal, left her alone. She thought perhaps these first faces she got to see were her parents. She isn't so sure now, but she hopes they'll hurry back. She is hungry.  
  
The others she hatched with are, as well. They are all very small, and it's a long way down to the ground even if they could get through the dome covering the nest.  
  
The warm light over them has gone dark, and though the air is warm around them, the unhatched eggs in the nest with them are cold. She heard movement behind the shell of some of them, before. They're silent now.  
  
The hatchlings on the contrary are loud, her included. The dome echoes with their cries as they try to get their voices to escape into the strange cave with smooth walls that their nest is in. She doesn't know how long they have been screaming at the top of their tiny, newborn lungs, but they know instinctively that screaming means parents will come back, and parents will bring them food. She doesn't care whether it's the ones who were there when she hatched. Maybe those weren't parents at all, and are instead danger.  
  
There is a noise from outside the cave.  
  
The hatchlings redouble their efforts to call whoever is there to them. The youngest of them is so exhausted that barely a squeak comes out, but she keeps making those feeble squeaks anyway like her life depends on it, because it does.  
  
They hear something again from the outside. Their parents don't rush to them at the sound of their distress.  
  
She quiets down, and after a moment the others do, too, following her example. She was the first to hatch, so the others treat her as the one who knows what to do, as though she would have had that much time to gain more life experience. They do as she does when she crawls into the plants cushioning their nest, and hides behind the dead and dying eggs. Something is not right.  
  
The noise is closer now. It's cautious footsteps, and sniffing. Claws tap on the ground. Then there is a snarl.  
  
She is only a day old, but she is a predator. She knows now, the one making the noise is, too—and it's hunting.  
  
Something large steps into the cave, a shape moving behind the fog they've breathed onto the dome's surface, then another shape comes in right after it. It's not the ones who were there when she hatched.  
  
She presses herself flat and the others huddle closer to her. She can smell new things in the air, and also oddly familiar ones. She knows with as much certainty as she knows the thing moving in the cave is tall enough to reach their nest, that one of them is blood.  
  
The clawed steps come closer, and a big, scaly snout pushes under the dome and into the nest, two rows of sharp teeth emerging as it splits open. In a quick lunge, it picks up an egg, and cracks it on the edge of the nest. When it drops it in the hay again, the snout dives into the shell and eats what was inside.  
  
The snout is shoved aside by another one just like it, except slightly bigger, then both withdraw just outside. Jaws snap, on empty air but in a warning, and the other creature backs away with a hiss. The new snout pushes the dome up out of the way and sniffs at the nest while licking what's left of the egg innards.  
  
This is where the smell of blood comes from, she realizes, but the creature is not injured. It has killed so recently it hasn't cleaned off all remnants yet.  
  
It's about to pick up another egg, when it finds her and the others instead.


	2. June 12 1993, Part 2

Humans taste as good as she remembered. Not too different from the other mammals they have been feeding her and the pack she has seen fit to leave for herself.  
  
One of her two subordinates hasn't yet returned from going after the first human, but she has no doubt that she has caught it, and is probably taking her time eating it all by herself. She feels no remorse for not having left any of the second human for her wayward packmate.  
  
Her other subordinate must feel she wasn't given her fair share, with how she rushes straight at the dessert they both scented, without letting the head of the pack have first pick. They should both know by now she won't leave it at warnings for long.  
  
She turns back to the eggs, to carefully consider which ones seem the most delicious. Then she notices the nest has even more to offer.  
  
_Hatchlings._  
  
She has never robbed a nest before, but she knows in the part of her mind that knows she wants to hunt things and to belong to a group despite no one having taught her these things, that the eggs of others are nourishment that won't put up a struggle, so long as no one is guarding them, and that their already hatched young are almost as helpless and just as edible. She eagerly pushes her snout closer to the pile of small, trembling beings, takes a whiff of them—and stops. Something is wrong.  
  
Something is _familiar_. Something is also odd—she is fairly certain nests should only have one kind of infant dinosaurs in it, but the one in the egg had been a plant-eater's, and these are not.

One of the hatchlings lets out a terrified squeak, and that—she remembers that sound. She remembers having made it.  
  
These are not food. These are children.  
  
She noses at the scrawny, diminutive raptors, her teeth no longer bared, and she lets out a trilling sound she has never made before, and has never heard before. The part of her that knows she is a killer and a pack hunter must know it, preserved in her scavenged DNA from millions of years ago, when a Velociraptor mother last spoke to her chicks to calm them.  
  
The hatchlings' demeanor changes instantly. They uncoil themselves and rise, and the biggest of them barks a call in her frail, high-pitched voice, to announce her presence to the pack. Throwing her head back as she vocalizes almost tips her off balance.  
  
She nudges at the infant in response, still trilling. Four small purrs join in.  
  
The subordinate walks over to investigate, tilting her head. Her eyes widen as the hatchlings begin to scream for food again. She realizes it, too.  
  
They may not have laid the eggs these small creatures that are their kind hatched from, but suddenly, they are parents. Their children are crying. Their children are _starving_.  
  
The human carcasses would probably still have meat on them to strip, but it's scant offerings, and they can do better. She sniffs at the remaining eggs in the nest. Two of them smell wrong to her—they are not spoiled, but though the ones inside will no longer become viable raptors, they are not for eating, either. She picks up one of the two remaining ones that are, and cracks it open.  
  
As the children swarm their starter meal, she scents the air for threats, and for prey.  
  
She smells more humans. Humans can be both.  
  
She and her newly co-parent leave the nest with promises to return with more food. The doors being left ajar behind them worries her, but she doesn't know how to close them properly.

They entered this cave system through the opening the humans they've killed used to exit it, and after the first chamber they came into and a narrow tunnel, the cave with the nest in it is the first place they went to. They try the end of the tunnel that's closest and come to the dark chamber that they saw through one wall in the first one, and through another transparent part of the same wall, they see the nest chamber.

There are two exits from there, so they part ways, agreeing to seek out the nearest, easiest target so they can get back soon, and to call for the other when one of them has found their mark.

Quietly, she walks down a winding incline past large skeletons, aware of how out in the open she is at the moment. She sees no movement, but she hears it, and her nose tells her it's what she has been looking for.  
  
Humans don't hatch from eggs, but she doesn't know that, and it doesn't matter to her. There are human hatchlings close by—presumably helpless, and undoubtedly edible.


	3. June 13 1993

It's still dark the next morning when, in another part of the island, three raptors make their way out of the cave they followed humans to.

There were five of them before, and they hope to meet their missing packmates on the way out, though by now Watchful and Striker should have caught up to them. It soon becomes clear why Watchful didn't. On her packmate's dead body, Schemer recognizes the scent of the same human she already killed for the wound over her eye.

They find Striker where they had first ambushed the bellowers and the humans. There isn't a lot of her left to find.  
  
In three days Schemer and her packmates have been taken from the cage they grew up in together, have been trapped in another one so small that with the five of them sharing it there was barely enough room to turn around, have escaped to explore the world on their own for the first time—and, part of her wants to go back in the cage where life was predictable. She wouldn't, if she had the option. But because of a human with a sharp thing in its hand and the giant one that's all jaws, their first day in freedom was Watchful and Striker's last.

She knows how to plan and how to organize, usually. She isn't sure what to do now. It didn't use to be her who gives the commands and bears the responsibility, but out of the five of them that were brought here, she decided she is the most qualified to steer the group. She doesn't feel quite as qualified now, or they might all five be alive.

It's also beginning to look less and less likely they will be able to reunite with the others left behind in the bigger cage. They have been brought too far to find their way to them, too much land and more importantly water between them to cross, even if they could somehow break them out. The three of them are the pack now. Having appointed herself in charge, Schemer is now the head of her whole pack.

She tries not to touch her lacerated face, though her helplessness at the sting, and now itching, fustrates her, and the loss of half her vision makes it all the scarier. It's the first significant injury she has had.  
  
She will be strong and brave for her pack, though—for Swift and for Climber. She won't lose them, too. And she has made sure the human will wield no sharp things again. Had she known the extent of the damage it had done to her pack, she might have let the other two join in on the killing strike, since it was personal for all of them after all.  
  
They leave the human-made cave behind. It smells of something lurking in the shadows that they have yet to encounter, but know they don't want to, and it smells of the giant jaws. They make a hasty meal out of the felled bellower and drink from the small pond near it, and then head for the forest, seeking out a safer territory to claim.

They hunt new things with no real intention of catching them, for the novelty of unlimited space to sprint in. One of the outlets of their restlessness is a group of small, green creatures that run and jump around on two legs, scrawny little things that they normally wouldn't bother because, well, how much meat could there be in those. Climber gets close enough to one that her teeth suddenly close around the creature's slender neck. She lets it go, but the creature bites her on the lip as it's released. It stumbles away, trying to keep up with another of the creatures that Swift already chased in the same direction, as the others scatter every which way, and the raptors lose interest in the creatures. Climber's face goes numb for a while on the side where she was bitten, and Schemer has to stop her from rubbing her scales off on tree trunks in wonder at the lack of sensation until she gets it back. They have learned something new and decide to stay away from small, green things for now.  
  
They come across another human-cave, but it smells of the shadow lurkers, too, so they don't go inside, only stopping quickly to drink again. Among the scent of the lurkers they smell humans, the tang of blood recently spilled, and the giant jaws again—and confusingly, and the most temptingly, they smell other raptors.  
  
They skirt the structure in hard to repress curiosity, and track the raptor scent to something resembling their cage, with bars just as broken. They don't risk lingering in the area even now that it's beginning to be light, but they continue on their way feeling encouraged. They may not be the only ones here. The other raptors might wish to join them, instead of seeing them as competition.  
  
Cautiously, they let out calls as they travel, and instead of somewhere to settle down just yet, they search for packmates.  
  
Schemer is young. She, and the nine—then eight after one was taken away, then four with the others left behind, now two—that she has grown up with are barely adults. Despite how overwhelmed she feels now, she doesn't think she will hand over leadership of what little pack she has just like that, but the thought of finding older adults who know what they're doing is comforting.  
  
Their calls go unanswered all day.

At nightfall they come to a gap broken in a tall fence between a clearing and a forest down in a valley. They have seen fences before, and besides captivity, they associate them with a quiet hum and an uncomfortable feeling of pressure in the air surrounding them, and pain when they're touched—except, yesterday those effects suddenly disappeared, so they escaped. The ones they've seen since then have hummed again, even louder. At the first such fence they encountered, Schemer picked up a fallen branch in her mouth and threw it at the wires, which caused the branch to be burned to crisp by bright sparks, so it has been clear to them fences are to be avoided now. They don't feel the hum and pressure on this one, though. The fences have also had lights at the top. It's another thing they haven't gone too close to, because they can see without the lights even in the dark, and they don't want anything to see _them_ better. There are sticks poking from the top of this fence, too, but no lights on them.

They approach the gap carefully. The hum doesn't start, and the twig they throw just bounces off the wires. The raptors walk through the gap and down a slope into the forest below.

They're used to human-made things showing up all over, and passed just now another one like the thing they find on the forest floor, but the wrecked state of it is new. From what they can tell, the hard shell with soft things at three of its four corners has fallen from the tree it's lying under. It's spacious enough one of them could crawl in, but it seems like an impractical shelter. For one, it smells of vomit.  
  
The pack continues further into the woods.  
  
The scent of the giant jaws is strong there, but it's not fresh. It has spent a lot of time where they are now, but not in a day or two. It could return any time, though, so they judge the place as not safe.  
  
They climb a tree to rest in, taking turns being on the lookout, and after a short nap travel to the other side of the fenced in area. But once they're out of what they had considered to be the danger zone, they see the giant jaws roaming the plain. Downwind and out of sight, they observe, and it doesn't turn to go where the raptors have just come from.  
  
They spend days on the outskirts of the area, anxious, but hopeful. There is no one else in the fenced in forest, apart from small creatures that are more snack than a threat. The giant jaws doesn't return.  
  
They remember the jagged gap in the fence, and their own escape. This is not the giant jaws' territory, they realize—it was its cage. Now that it's free to go wherever it likes, this is the last place it wants to go back to.  
  
The fences are no cage for the raptors, who can climb over them or even tear in new gaps. While the scent of the giant jaws still lingers, other small predators are unlikely to wander in, and by the time it fades, the forest will smell of its new occupants to warn off intruders. It's close to where the plant-eaters graze but not so close they will be scared off and leave the raptors without easy access to prey. Sometimes they might even be able to scavenge the giant jaws' kills. The small, green things are doing so, and with their different size, perhaps they'll eat different parts of the carcasses and can do so in peace.  
  
There is running water where the raptors entered the forest. Near it, not too near lest any kills they bring home dirty the water, is a glade surrounded by tall trees set so close together that, should the giant jaws return, it would have a hard time fitting between them, and definitely couldn't do so quietly. It's on raised ground, excellent for seeing smaller threats before they get too close.  
  
Swift and Climber have already found the best spot to lie in, and have curled in it to groom each other, like they haven't dared to stop to properly do in days. Schemer jumps to perch on one low branch after another to test them, and doesn't find one she doesn't like.

Striker and Watchful would have loved it there. The cage they grew up in had hiding places and some room to stretch their legs, but they quickly outgrew it, and for most of their young life their purpose as individuals and as pack has been to get out of it. Now the three of them have achieved it, no more escape schemes necessary, and that makes their new purpose to thrive.

After peering at the surrounding forest with her one still-seeing eye a moment longer, Leader joins the comfort of the preening pile.  
  
She still hasn't given up hope that there will turn out to be other raptors around, but they will have to come to her now. Her pack has found its den.


	4. June 12 1993, part 3

The parents have not returned.

The hatchlings heard noise and saw movement just outside the cave their nest is in not long ago, and it sounded like raptor. They rose to press against the dome to see and hear better, not making a sound because they know the parents know where the nest is, but if there is something the parents are fighting, they wouldn't want that to know, too. Then the noise and movement went away, and they were alone again.

The egg has been long since emptied, and it helped, but they are still hungry, especially with how they are too stressed to sleep and regain their strength.

The oldest of the hatchlings wonders what to do, as the others huddle around her for warmth. It seems, with the parents gone, she has been promoted back to the position of the one expected to know.  
  
A roar fills the air, passing right through her and the others as a tremor despite being muffled by several walls between them and its source.

Oh, what she wouldn't give right now to be able to hide behind the snout of a grown raptor, pushing her small head against the soft and warm underside of jaws that she can trust to maul anything that threatens her.

She can hardly wait to have that reassurance and protection back with them again, but in the meanwhile, there must be something she can do as well. The others let out a whine when she crawls out of the hay and moss.  
  
She jumps onto the other egg the parents had designated as for-eating, and though at first she just gets her snout scratched on the surface and her claws sore from stabbing rather than slashing, she breaks the surface eventually just like she broke her own from the inside. That meal doesn't last long, either, with four hatchlings sharing it. As soon as the last of the egg's contents have been lapped up and their hunger held at bay for a bit longer, instead of burrowing in the cushioning of their nest again to wait, she decides it's time for them to leave.  
  
The parents found this nest very easily while hunting. Something else will find it just as easily.

The gap under the dome's edge is just wide enough to crawl through after the parents' snouts tilted the dome onto one side, but there isn't much room to stand outside it.

There is an odd tree growing near their nest, trunk protruding from the ground with a branch hanging almost over the nest but too high up to reach. The dome is too slippery to climb to get to it. She approaches the tree slowly, ready to jump away and dive under the dome, because she remembers seeing the tree move when she hatched.  
  
She hisses at the tree, or whatever it is. When it doesn't budge, she creeps a little closer.  
  
The chasm between the tree and the nest is wide to cross for her small legs that have had little chance to build muscle. Before she can hesitate, she jumps anyway, and manages to cling to something in the tree's surprisingly hard and smooth surface.  
  
The others run to the edge of the nest to watch her struggle for something to grip. They tilt their heads curiously, learning from her example, or her mistake.  
  
It takes more of her strength than she would have thought, but she manages to slowly move down the trunk, and when the ground seems near enough, she gives up climbing and jumps. The ground is hard like the tree. She has barely finished steadying herself after landing on her feet, when there's a screech from above her, and one of the others lands almost on top of her, and one by one the hatchlings leave their nest.  
  
The youngest of them loses her grip halfway down and falls on her leg. She squeaks miserably at her injury, but the hatchlings don't know of anything they could do about that, and continue exploring while one of them limps along and tries to keep up.  
  
There's two cave chamber openings between her and the others when they realize she isn't with them, and think to turn back. They find her hiding under a large and smooth white leaf, following the recognizable squeaking noise she starts to make when they get closer. They move slower after that and stay together. Squeak's walking looks painful, but she compensates for her injured leg by walking in a crouch and placing her hands on the ground with every other step.

The next cave they go in is dark, and there are sharp shards of something like the dome over their nest on the ground near a missing portion of wall. They step carefully and move further into the cave, the floor of which is uneven and rises towards the side they head to. When they look back, through a transparent wall that is clearer than the dome was, they see the nest cave behind them. They were very easy to find indeed.  
  
At an opening leading to a larger cave, they stop at the scents wafting from inside—the scents, and the _sounds_.  
  
They see nothing moving from where they are, but something too enormous to comprehend is breathing in there. It smells of stay-still-and-hope-it-doesn't-find-you. It's already eating something, though, and the knowledge comes with relief at their chances to avoid it, before sinking in with distress.  
  
They have been following the trace scent of their parents. The trail leads into the large cave.  
  
The firstborn leading the group hears a quiet whimper behind her, and turns to snap her jaws at the hatchling making noise when there's danger near, half expecting to find the already most troublesome of her companions at the receiving end of the reprimand. It's one of the other two, though, and in fact she can't see Squeak at all. She cranes her neck to look further back—did they leave her behind again? Now of all times! She turns back around, and finds her—limping far ahead of the group, nose to the ground like it very nearly has been since her injury forced her to all fours, or more accurately all threes.  
  
At the other side of the dark chamber they're in, near another exit, Squeak turns around. She throws her head back as if barking a call, but makes no sound. When the others hesitate, she repeats the gesture.  
  
The leader of their small band of infant raptors raises her snout to sniff, and—yes, she smells it, too. The scent trail splits into two here. The other trail leads down the path she can see Squeak asking them to follow. She glances one more time at the opening leading to the large cave, then sprints, the other two close behind her.  
  
When she reaches the other side of the chamber, she gives Squeak a firm snap for wandering off without telling anyone. Immediately, she _receives_ a snap in return, which she's pretty sure is not supposed to happen, because if they're considering her the strongest and wisest, _she_ should make the decisions and they should _listen!_ She wants to reassert the dominance she's already getting attached to, her teeth grinding and head twitching from side to side for the short moment of calculating her move. She lunges.  
  
Out of her two impulses, affirming that the pack is in one piece in this dangerous place wins over. She pushes the side of her head against Squeak's palpitating neck, and rubs it there.  
  
Squeak stiffens for a moment. Then she mirrors that action, too.

The path they take turns into a downwards slope made of many, identical ledges. Squeak seems to find it easier to move on than even ground, or the similar terrain when it was uphill, because not being able to use one leg, she has to hop a little to get ahead anyway. At the bottom of the hill she needs to sit down for a moment, though, and rest the one leg she has been landing on with every drop from a ledge. The others are impatient, but they wait with her.  
  
They move further down the tunnel they have descended to, through openings they find.

Soon they come to a canyon guarded by brightly, intimidatingly boldly colored creatures; some of a shape they recognize they should see as possible prey, some as possible danger, but all more or less their match in size. So many of them, standing perfectly still, almost covering each cliffside. They don't smell distinctly like anything living, nor dead, and they don't move even when one hatchling dares to poke at them, followed by another dashing at the thing and slashing open its side. No blood, intestines, or muscle spills out, only something white and soft that they can't eat. The other creatures give no reaction, not even their eyes moving to follow the raptors' movements. They leave them be for now.  
  
The chamber the canyon opens to is full of strange scents, but under the odd things they have no use for, there is the smell of food. After a careful look around, they run to the base of the raised level the food is located on, and climb up the soft membrane hanging down from it. Pieces ripped suspiciously cleanly from the carcass of a creature that seems to have died of burning has gotten a splash of something less than appetizing on it, but they're not picky. They are newborn and growing, and ready to devour twice their weight in a day if available.

They can smell the giant thing very near, perhaps only one wall separating them, so they try to be quiet. It makes sense to them that if the giant thing could get to where they are, it would have come for the food there already. But it could just as well be that it hasn't gotten around to it yet, and is planning to.

From their higher vantage point, they see large creatures on the other side of the chamber. Realizing one of them is the shape of a parent brightens their moods, but it soon becomes clear to them the creatures are as unmoving as the ones in the canyon, and are not creatures at all, but part of the wall. It soon loses their attention in favor of the food that they know to be real.  
  
At the familiar, small sound from the ground, the head of the pack pauses eating to go look down over the edge. The piece of meat in her mouth falls off when she tries to snap her jaws to say 'be quiet, don't attract danger', and Squeak gobbles up the dropped treat so quickly that if it hadn't been already bitten so small she would probably have choked. Then she looks up again, and opens her mouth wide like when they were in the nest.  
  
The leader considers a moment, then fetches another chunk of food, and drops that, too. A parent isn't here to feed them, but that the other infant is fed feels like the correct outcome, and since she can without having to go hungry herself, she makes it happen.  
  
Dare and Dash-and-slash come over to see what she is doing. She needs to nudge them a few times, but they sense her approval when they copy her, and soon all three are taking turns throwing every other mouthful to the ground.  
  
Something big hits a wall hard right then, very close. The hatchlings freeze.  
  
When the sound repeats, they crouch down, and Squeak limps under the membrane to hide. She picks up as many chunks of meat as she can carry in her mouth along the way.  
  
They wait.  
  
From the direction the noise had come from, through something making it quieter, sounds a raptor call.  
  
The hatchlings abandon all stealth, and begin screaming their own calls. A parent is here, alive after all! She'll take care of them and now all will be well. When the parent doesn't rush to them immediately, they go to her instead, hastily climbing down from where the food is and running across the ground to the mouth of a new cave.  
  
The cave is dark, but they see well in dark. They remember to peek behind the tall things in the middle of the cave as they explore, but they don't bother sneaking. The parent is nowhere in sight, though. They call again.  
  
From the back of the cave, comes an answer, from behind a wall. No, it comes from behind a covered gap in a wall, doesn't it, the kind they have been seeing as they've travelled, some closed but others ajar enough they have gotten through. The creatures that were there when she hatched—humans—can move the coverings aside, the head of the hatchling pack remembers, and she thinks something else that's bigger than her should be able to, as well.  
  
On the other side, the parent throws her weight against the covering, but it doesn't open.  
  
The hatchlings gather in front of it, though keep a distance in anticipation of the obstacle swinging open. They bark out more calls, and look around them in confusion. What's wrong—why can't the parent come to them? Can they do something to make it happen?  
  
There is a thing that looks like a bent stick sticking out from the covering, at halfway up, and it's rattling. She remembers humans would grab things like those on the gap coverings, push down on them, and then open the way forward. The parent knows it, too, and is pushing on it on the other side, but it still won't let her out.  
  
Does it open in the other direction? She tries pushing the covering, and after a moment the others join her. It doesn't help, though. Are they too small? The hatchlings pace and tap their sickle claws in frustration. They cry out for their parent, because it's what instinct tells them will make things right. Parents will make things right.  
  
The sound of things crashing to the ground comes through.

  
  
The hatchlings don't know what is on the other side, but the adult raptor has grown tired of not having a proper foothold on the icy floor. The shelves reach almost from one wall to the other when horizontal. When she tries again and just makes the shelves slide away from the door under her instead of providing traction, she knocks over the rest at the back, too.  
  
But now jumping against the door is out of the question, or she will hurt her ankles between the shelves when she lands. Apart from just not wanting to injure herself, keeping her powerful legs intact is required to put enough pressure on the door. She braces her feet against a shelf instead, and leans against the door with a kick.  
  
The shelf warps. The door doesn't.

She wonders where her two useless subordinates have gotten off to. Maybe they would get this door open from the other side. She would give them each a bite if they did, for the delay and never being where they're supposed to be, but now she can't even do that. She is supposed to be too clever and strong to be unable to make things around her bend to her will.

She hasn't tried to connect with others of her species through other means than violence in a long time. She was moved out of the nestling cage she had first been put in, for starting a fight when another chick nibbled her scales and bit her, even though she had thought they were getting along just fine before. The nestlings in her new cage, despite never having had a parent to teach them, either, had managed to learn a proper technique for allopreening, but she didn't know how to ask to be included, and quickly learned to get whatever she wanted by threatening instead. One of her two useless subordinates can thank for being left alive when she was brought to her current pack as an adult the fact that she remembers her from that second cage, before she was moved again.

She has no experience in being around juvenile raptors while not being one herself, though, and what she has learned about interacting with those of her own age isn't applicable. All she knew as a chick was what instinct told her, and she used it as best she could to learn how to be what she is. All she knows now about interacting with chicks as an adult is what instinct tells her.

The roaring she heard a while ago worries her, and she may not care about the other two adults all that much, but she knows children need someone to protect them. Now that they are hers, she knows she is supposed to protect them.  
  
She tries to fluff her feathers against the cold air, and her scales won't obey the reflex.

  
  
The hatchlings stay othe other side. They try climbing to the rattling thing, but their claws won't sink deep enough in the smooth, hard surfaces, and they try digging under the obstacle, but run into the same problem. When they can't think of anything more to do, they sit down, then eventually lie down.

The giant thing in the big cave they passed roars again, and they wrap themselves tightly around each other. They think they can hear humans yelling, too. They listen for approaching sounds, but nothing comes to where they are. Something could, though. This place is not a nest, and it's not a den, and there's barely shelter to be found.  
  
The light coming into the cave from the outside has changed. It's orange now, and there's less of it.  
  
The head of the hatchling pack calls out one more time, but doesn't get an answer. She hears the parent moving, but she has stopped speaking to them. They have to keep letting each other know that they're still there, don't they? Even if she can't come to them, that way they are sort of together anyway...  
  
...Here, in this place that isn't a nest or a den and barely offers shelter.  
  
They can't stay, she realizes.

She realizes the parent, too, knows that they can't. They have to leave, and they have to leave her behind.  
  
She extricates herself from the hatchling pile, and walks over to press herself against the thing separating them from the adult. As close as she can get, she trills as loud as she can.

This time the parent returns the sound.

The others get up and join her, hopeful that she has come up with a solution, and they seem confused when she stops and begins to walk away. She calls for them to join her, and snaps at them when they refuse, which inspires no greater compliance.  
  
There is a new scent in the air, something as terrifying as the giant thing, but unlike the giant thing that can't fit in here, it's drawing closer. The others must sense it, too. That the safest place to be is with their parent is what she feels as much as they do, but she doesn't go back, and calls for the others again. This time they follow.

They find their way into the outside through the canyon of bright and uncaring creatures, and a gap opened into a see-through part of the wall in a chamber they hadn't gone to before, because the parents hadn't, either. Then they run.  
  
And, then they run back, and twitch about while covering the same distance again, now at Squeak's pace. They try to push her to move faster, and get growls in reply, one time an almost-connecting bite when a shove jostles Squeak's injured leg. Little by little they adapt to directing their nervous energy to watching their surroundings instead, and Dare begins to scout ahead for a path free of both predators and too difficult terrain.  
  
They have no idea where they're going, but perhaps they'll know it when they find it.  
  
They rest when they find somewhere to hide. Sleep comes in short, anxious stretches without a large, warm body next to them and a heartbeat slower than their own to press their ear to. They purr at each other, but it's not the same, and it's also not safe. They get up again soon, and keep going through the night.

They make their first kill of a bug, which yields more experience than food, then continue forward again. They stop to take sips from puddles they come across, but turning their backs on the forest and bending down to drink feels too vulnerable, so a sip per puddle is all they take.  
  
By morning they have gotten clear of the scent of terrible things lurking in the shadows, and start to feel more confident about being terrible things themselves, that can lurk and perhaps soon catch something bigger than a bug. They smell all kinds of creatures nearby, some of them surely small enough for killing. Some of the things they track, the feathered ones, turn out to be able to fly and to notice them too quickly to catch by surprise, though perhaps one day they'll be skilled enough to sneak up on those, too.

Just when they are about to rest from their unsuccessful hunt, a furry thing on four legs with a long tail runs directly at them, narrowly dodging them and diving into a hole in the ground.  
  
They care little about why the creature may have been running, and are digging it up with renewed enthusiasm, when they are approached.  
  
A scaly, green creature jumps onto a tree root nearby—too far to sprint to, and it must know it, but close enough the hatchlings know they are being addressed. It tilts its small head supported by a long, thin neck, and perches much like they do. It's not a raptor, though, so they don't know what to make of it. They try scaring it off, and it jumps back when two of them mock-charge.  
  
With its attention on the rest of them, Dare begins to sneak to the side, and the raptors grow excited at the thought of being able to take the creature down by surrounding it without it noticing. It's about their size and has no sickle claws. On its neck they see a few fresh wounds already, from a run-in with something bigger, that let it get away with its life but left it injured. This will be their first trapping.  
  
The fur thing escapes its hole the moment it's left unguarded. Dash runs after it.  
  
The other three, turned to watch the green creature, hear her scream.  
  
Another creature like the one in front of them has jumped from the bushes. Dash has gotten away from it and backs to the others, hissing, but she has a bite mark on her back. As soon as the other raptors turn to look at her, the head of the pack feels teeth at her shoulder. Dare runs to their aid, but the creature that bit Dash has circled over and lets its teeth scrape her side as it runs past.  
  
The raptors huddle together tail to tail, now knowing they are indeed in the middle of their first trapping—as the intended prey. Their injuries are minor, though, and the creatures won't sneak up on them again. The scrawny things aren't even trying to approach now that they've been found out. The biggest of the small raptors swipes her claws at them in a threat. Her pack may be young, but they are quick, too.  
  
But her movement isn't, not as quick as she thought it would be. She shakes her head, which feels oddly heavy.  
  
Dare takes a step to the side, and almost falls over.  
  
The creatures aren't trying to attack again despite having inflicted only minor injuries, because something in their bite is taking the raptors down for them. They aren't scared. They are waiting.  
  
The head of the infant raptor pack feels her legs go out from under her. Her arms won't move to push her up when she tells them to, and she can barely feel that they're still there.  
  
With the loudest, fiercest screech the others have heard her make so far, Squeak rushes in front of her packmates to shield them. She hasn't been bitten. The creatures must have watched them for a while, and they know she is already hurt, so they haven't bothered with her yet.  
  
She tries keeping track of each creature's position, careful not to turn her head too much to watch just one. She growls and she flexes her claws. The creatures don't seem intimidated. The cuts on the wounded one's neck must hurt, but it moves almost as gracefully as the other, its injury nothing as limiting as a broken leg. There are two of them, there's only one of Squeak, and she is only two days old.  
  
Her pack can do nothing but watch when the creatures leap at her.


	5. September 1993

Swiftdive steps carefully over the roots into the den. She makes her way to Leader, and waits for her to align their snouts before opening her jaws, and letting the water she has carried in her mouth fall into the other raptor's.  
  
Though it's not much, in their current situation the drink is very appreciated.  
  
Mating season, brought by their settled down comfort and sense of security, has turned Treeclimber's scales a deep orange with darker stripes, that at first had Leader and Swiftdive competing for his attention. Then they realized it's unnecessary, and was driving a wedge between the head of the pack and her trusted hunter over a lower-ranking packmate's favor. The trio incubates their two clutches of eggs in shifts, where the one of them that isn't busy brooding at the moment keeps the other two fed, and guards and grooms them. None of them is getting much rest, but it's better than it would be without coordination.  
  
Swiftdive rubs her cheek against Leader's neck as she gently cleans her back scales. Leader rests her head on Swiftdive's flank while sitting over the eggs Swiftdive laid, and closes her eyes. Treeclimber watches and waits for his turn, warming the eggs Leader laid.  
  
Ever since they were put in the same enclosure at barely older than hatchlings, there isn't a lot the three of them haven't shared.

Maintaining the right conditions for the incubation is more difficult than they feel it should be, and while the thinner scales over their bellies allow transferring body heat to the eggs quite well, something is missing from keeping the necessary warmth and moisture in the nest. Genetic modification and cloning from samples deteriorated by time has denied them feathers, but this is how they feel they should do it. They compensate for the lack of insulating fluff with hay and moss like the nest they hatched in had, partially covering themselves in it instead of just using it as bedding, and arranging it carefully to still allow enough air circulation to let the eggs breathe. It seems to be working.  
  
Swiftdive takes a short nap after grooming Treeclimber and checking the den's surroundings, before switching places with Leader for her turn in brooding.  
  
The young head of the pack has grown confident in her new role in the social group, and looks forward to the next new role she soon has to learn as a parent. She leaves her two mates to their task, and sniffs the air on her way down from the den. Hunting alone is challenging, but it won't be long anymore before the chicks hatch, and then they'll be able to hunt in a pair—will have to, too, with so many mouths to feed.  
  
Eventually they'll begin to teach their children to track and kill prey, and one day will watch with pride when they take something down as a team. First will come other important lessons, though, of communication and cleanliness and knowing when to fight and when to hide—things their parents have begun to get the hang of by now. The thought of sending days old nestlings on a hunt is as frightening as it is preposterous to her, as relatively safe as their fenced forest is.  
  
They have explored enough to know they are on an island. There are many parts of it they avoid, mostly the areas favored by the giant jaws, though it seems to consider the entire island to belong to it, so no place outside their forest is completely safe from it. There is the area inhabited by the frilled spitters that the raptors also want nothing to do with, and the feeling seems to be mutual. The shadow lurkers have stuck to human-made structures, it seems, so after dark those are off-limits as well. Perhaps one day this will change, but right now they are a pack of three with babies on the way, so now is no time for territory expansions.  
  
The south tip of the island is also less familiar to the raptors, as there just seems to not be much prey worth chasing there for animals their size. But Leader is in the mood for a change of scenery, having been cooped up so much, and it's not like they know for sure there's nothing in the south, so that's the direction she heads in now.  
  
She has adopted the habit of exaggerated bobbing of her head as she walks and runs, and turning her head often from side to side, to make up for the dents in her vision. Some use of her left eye did eventually return, but she can barely see shapes with it, and only if they move, so she is being careful.  
  
It seems their avoidance of the south tip has been a good idea, though, as she wanders for longer than the others probably expect her to take on a hunt, and finds nothing. In fact, it's like something is picking this area clean of prey, small animals and medium-sized alike, and intimidating away larger ones by... she isn't sure what. The scent of a tiny predator should not scare away plant-eaters that are too big for the species to hunt.  
  
Her curiosity gets the better of her, and she stays in the area, no longer looking for prey, but instead the possible competitors they have had no idea of.  
  
The spitters wouldn't have claimed more ground, would they? She promises herself to turn back the moment she detects any sign of them, because that's a confrontation she will not be having by herself. Same goes for the shadow lurkers, and they do indeed scare off most other things, the raptors included, but during the day they should be resting and hiding even if they are here.  
  
It occurs to her she hasn't seen any of the green scavengers, either. Since their initial run-in with them, the raptors have come to understand that nothing hunts those things, because they clean up others' messes, and though they also hunt, and would undoubtedly not turn aside the opportunity to rob an unattended raptor nest, as long as they have plenty otherwise, they'll rather not risk it. Perhaps they come here, too, but they don't seem to do so openly. What could _they_ be afraid of?  
  
As she travels further south, she begins to pick up a scent—an oddly familiar one. Have her mates been here recently after all? But closer than the source of that scent is something that suddenly interests her more.  
  
Behind a bush, utterly unaware of her presence, is one of those fluffy, white mammals with horns and four legs. She thought the giant jaws ate them all already, but it seems one has hidden in here. She has found prey to bring home after all.  
  
Leader crouches, and creeps closer, to optimal pouncing range. She makes sure it's looking away when she moves her head to judge its distance more accurately, and tenses her legs for the leap. The mammal won't know what hit it.  
  
And neither does she, when the mammal does get hit—by a group of small dinosaurs that run through the undergrowth from both sides of her, surround the mammal, and descend on it all at once in the middle.

No, not just any small dinosaurs. Leader isn't sure whether to believe her eye, but her nose is never wrong.

Despite the little ones' efforts, the mammal is shaking them off, and is about to get away. Leader rises from her hiding place, and jumps over the mammal to cut off its escape, screeching in its face with her fingerclaws spread to frighten the fight out of it.  
  
She certainly scares the tiny predators, but the mammal instead rushes forward, attempting to butt its hard head into her legs or underbelly. Leader dodges, and turns in time to flank the prey. She would go for its throat, but one of the little ones is still valiantly hanging on and trying to do just that, so instead she kicks into the mammal's side, stabbing her sickle claw between ribs and pinning the body to the ground with her weight.  
  
The mammal kicks for a moment, but with the target having less freedom of movement, the little one gets in a good bite that quickly drains it of resistance as blood begins to pool on the ground. Leader lifts her foot off the kill and backs away a step.  
  
The little ones are bruised and dusty, but get up from where they were thrown, except for the one that finished the hunt, who climbs from the mammal's neck onto the stilling ribcage. Its face is obscured by a mask of slick red, but the hard stare of slit-pupil eyes and snarl of spiky teeth from under the dripping mammal blood is an unmistakable challenge. The others gather on either side of the small, brave fool, who steps to the front of the group as the obvious head of the pack.  
  
They are, without a doubt, Velociraptors, barely three months old.  
  
Leader stays right where she is. The kid _has_ to know they're in over their heads. But then, they are just by being outside a nest alone at their age. Their small bodies sport scars a raptor that young shouldn't have to have, and they're skittish and underfed. They're not her chicks, and they're not her pack's, but they're clearly no one else's, either.  
  
The little raptors on either side of the one that got in the killing bite made quite the deadly duo in their ambush attempt themselves, doomed though it would have been without interference. The head of the pack is obviously of the mind the strongest of the group is there to protect the others, not send them to get hurt instead of her. And behind the other three stands a nestling with the most impressive display of lived-through injuries of them all, with two of what must have once been quite deep gashes across her side, and one down the length of her snout splitting a gap in her upper lip almost in the middle. One of her legs is at an off angle from mid-shin, having healed that way after apparently breaking early in her life. She isn't as agile and fast as the others, but they seem very protective and fond of her.  
  
Leader gives them the sound she would make at friendly adult raptors, acknowledging them as formidable, if not quite equals.  
  
The nestlings' stance uncoils, but they stare at her silently, eyes wide and nostrils flaring. The head of the pack takes a step forward, her teeth no longer bared.  
  
Leader repeats the sound. Then she throws her head back and barks a call at them in invitation. She is here, and she could be pack.  
  
Beginning with the one at the point, the nestlings respond in kind, and all of them come closer. They sniff at her thoroughly, like they can't quite believe she's real. The head of the nestling pack stops in front of her, and cranes her neck.  
  
Leader bends her head forward to meet her, and as she does she hears a quickly amplifying, purring trill that only gets louder when she returns that, too. If the young ones are to be pack, they are hers now, even though they weren't from the start. They can certainly look after themselves and each other, but they could use someone doing it _for_ them, too.  
  
She is going to bring home to her mates food, and she is going to bring home to them their four new daughters who helped her catch it.  
  
The tiny, bloodsoaked survivor who has been in charge of the safety of her fellow children for months pushes her head to the soft, warm underside of Leader's jaw and purrs and purrs.


	6. October 5 1994, and after

A year later, the humans return.

The pack is at a difficult time in their lives, having just lost three juveniles—a son and two daughters from Leader's first clutch of five. No revenge is sought against the spitters for killing them to feed their own young, which it seems their neighbors are finally grown enough to have, but that the children had strayed too far into other carnivores' territory doesn't make their family miss them any less or accept sooner that they are gone.

Survivor, Dare, and Swiftdive peer over a ridge at what should be a safe distance, and observe as the humans find what the spitters had left behind. The young ones' corpses are poked and shone at with the lights in the humans' hands, but the humans don't eat the unattended kill they would be entitled to. The raptors have stolen food from the spitters, themselves, and know that their venom, despite dangerous when fresh to the point of doing irreversible damage, quickly loses its effect, and doesn't leave tainted the meat that the unlucky creature becomes. Perhaps humans are more sensitive to it.

The humans return to the noisy things they use to move around, and the raptors return to their den.

The remaining juveniles are made to stay at home while the humans are about. They're not quite sure what the humans want, but the last time they were on the island had involved cages, and the adults seem unsettled by the idea of going back into one, so cages must be very bad.

The humans come near their forest, but they don't enter it. The giant jaws hasn't been to the valley in a year now, but humans seem to have terrible sense of smell, so they wouldn't know that. Instead the humans fly over the island on another noisy thing, and watch the dinosaurs below. The raptors stay in their den and hide under the foliage, but not being discovered doesn't reassure the adults. They know scouting behavior when they see it, and expect more.

The more comes shortly before nightfall, and the raptors smell the smoke and hear the noise before they go find out in the morning and see the aftermath.

The human-made cave the shadow lurkers had claimed is empty. There are burned spots but no bodies, of either the lurkers or the ones they had captured alive and used as nests, human or dinosaur. Humans won't eat dead raptors, but these bodies they have taken with them? Taking the lurkers they seem to have killed, when there can't be much left of them after the fire, is confusing, but they can see some context for taking the by now skeletal remains of the humans. The raptors find it hard not to guard the corpses of their lost packmates, too. They conclude it takes humans longer to understand that the dead can't be brought back no matter how tightly you hold onto pieces left of them.

As soon as they had reappeared, the humans are gone again. The few lurkers they missed are sometimes seen wandering the island, but they make no more nests, and sightings grow rarer. The raptors feel no gratitude for the wiping out of some of their competition, and instead remember the power humans have, to do that to another population should they choose to.

The young raptors continue to grow and learn. There are ten of them now, with Leader's remaining son and daughter, Swiftdive's two sons and two daughters, and the four that hatched elsewhere but are now pack. The three adults are parents to all of them, because they are adults who are raising them, but they know they are not all siblings to each other. Four of them not being biologically related to the other six, or even to each other, doesn't mean they are treated differently—all of them are the pack's children. But if there were more adults in the pack, those adults would be their parents, too, despite not being the mates of their other parents, because they would all raise the pack's young together, adhering in their distribution of tasks more to the pack's inner hierarchy than to who actually made which chick.

They keep track of that, but for now it makes little difference. Position in the pecking order isn't automatically inherited through bloodlines, and though it is still mostly through play, a sense of who is better at listening to whom and who at making decisions for all of them forms little by little with every interaction.

The young ones still have adults with them more often than not, but become more and more capable of roaming the forest's surroundings independently. The four slightly older juveniles start to want to do so again, now that they don't have to.

Survivor takes to disappearing for days at a time with a small team. The other children still look up to her, and sometimes a fight almost breaks out over who gets to be included, though her company varies enough that sooner or later they all get their turn.

Leader, Swiftdive, and Treeclimber struggle between their worry and their growing sense of the den getting small for them all.

The expeditions take the young raptors all over the island, sometimes to the south tip, which they find has become home to a herd of plant-eaters now that the area no longer smells perpetually of raptor, sometimes almost to the high mountain in the north. They are for exploring, not picking fights, so the raptors mostly avoid contact with other dinosaurs.

They still see plenty of them. On one such outing Survivor and the others see for the first time the one with giant jaws, too enormous still to go anywhere near even though they are no longer hatchlings. They've smelled its scent and heard its roars before, but finally have a sight to connect to these other sensations. It doesn't amend the creature being synonymous with the feeling of fear in their minds, but seeing it slowly and even a little clumsily get up from its nap, and try to scratch its side with its tiny arms before resorting to rubbing the itch on a tree trunk instead brings a small shift of perspective—even if it is as tiny as the giant jaws' arms are in proportion to the rest of it.

On the longer journeys they of course need to hunt to eat. The older four have both their experience from their early life and the teachings of their parents to refine their skills, when they begin tracking prey independently again, and the six of them that are three months younger aren't far behind.

They develop many different hunting strategies tweaked for their varying team configurations. Dare, along with Finder, one of Swiftdive's sons, like sneaking as close as they can to a plant-eater, and when they aren't even hunting they often do it just to see if they could. Leader's two remaining children, Shredder and Grappleclaws, are better at the actual pouncing on prey, provided that Dash, Elusive, or Squeak manage to make the target nervous enough it runs carelessly in their direction. If it manages to avoid them all, Swiftdive's daughters Triptail and Whirlwind will most likely be able to catch it by running. Those with similar roles still have their individual strengths that are taken into account as they are discovered. Survivor gets better every day at overseeing their hunts, real and pretend, and directing each member of the team where they're supposed to go and being everywhere an extra raptor is needed. Along with their senses and instincts, the others rely on her warnings and timely backup to keep them safe, and it's a responsibility she finds herself choosing to carry again.

Along with triumphs, sometimes there are setbacks. One time their attempt to take down a lost, young three-horn goes almost disastrously wrong. The plant-eater proves stronger and less panicky than expected, and after failing to throw Grappleclaws off its back, it attempts to ram him into a tree. Survivor jumps in front of it just in time for it to change its course and not slam the flank Grappleclaws is hanging onto against the tree after all, but she hasn't thought the action through far enough to get out of its way, herself.

Luckily someone else has. Just when stabbing horns and stomping feet are about to reach her, two more raptors leap from the bushes, and Elusive throws his weight against the plant-eater's side, with Squeak so close behind she must have been the first one to start running, and together they cause the three-horn to almost fall over. The raptors manage to scurry and clamber to safety before their unexpectedly hazardous prey steadies itself, and don't mind so much going hungry that day. When they stop to rest, all four lie down in a pile, wound tighter around each other than they would need to be for keeping warm. Survivor clucks and frets over any minor injuries her packmates have gained, until Squeak brings her face in front of hers and snaps her jaws, quickly followed by gently rubbing the side of her head against Survivor's neck.

Squeak isn't as fast as the others, but she is observant, whether it's about when a three-horn won't get sufficiently spooked by a raptor jumping in front of it, or about when somebody needs to stop double-checking everybody else's bruises and clean the scratch on their own leg already. She is beginning to have an almost permanent invite to be part of the team, and whenever she is, rather than her main role being heckling prey, she is beginning to have a reserved spot as the reliable second-in-command, because their dynamic is one thing about the day's hunt that isn't an exception. Survivor takes care of the pack. Squeak takes care of Survivor.

It's not always so dramatic, though. On their next journey they manage to avoid dangers entirely, and though their lunch, consisting of one of those small, feathery things split between four raptors, isn't very filling, their discovery of a small pond and the fact they can swim in it makes the expedition a success. Shredder gets credit for this invention by falling off the overhanging tree she's perching on and into the water, though technically credit could also go to Triptail, who bumps into her and causes the fall. The pond is shallow enough there that Shredder can walk along the bottom, but instead of heading towards the bank, she spirals around the pond until she's happily darting across the deeper center, cutting water with her snout as sharply as she cuts flesh with her claws.

Another time Survivor, Whirlwind, and Elusive climb onto a high cliff and spend the day simply looking at everything they can see from up there and lying in the sun, and in the shade when it gets too hot. Finder and Squeak follow their tracks to the cliff and join them later, through a longer way up that the other three hadn't considered, wanting to get up quickly since they could, but which is easier to climb. They begin to use that route instead on later visits, so the path that things like the spitters might prefer to use smells of this-is-raptor-territory-today-go-away, and so everyone in the pack can climb together.

One day on their travels, the raptors stop to snack on a half-finished carcass left by the giant jaws. The other plant-eaters of the herd are grazing at the other side of the plain, seeming no more unsettled than can be expected after they have just lost a member of the herd, so the giant jaws seems to have just left the kill alone after eating enough for the moment.

A pair of spitters is already eating there, and they hiss at the raptors as they approach. The raptors show off their claws and growl, but only as a warning, and after a delicate dance of convincing each other of their lack of interest in a fight right now, the two groups of predators settle to eat at opposite ends of the carcass. One from each group still keeps an eye on the other group, of course, just in case.

Around them, the third party of the feast grows nervous as the raptors show up, but begin to tentatively lower their guard again when it's only the already dead meat they want. The green scavenger closest to where the raptors stop edges quietly further away, until the raptors eating at either side of it look up to see what it's doing.

Now almost at their adult height, Dash and Squeak look down at the scavenger, and the three recognize each other by their scars—the couple of tooth marks that remain of the bite on Dash's back as the first blood spilled; the couple of tooth marks that remain of the bite Squeak gave the green thing, to join the marks around its neck when it got too close, high up its throat so it couldn't bite back; the ones it slashed into Squeak's side, making her let it go; and the one down Squeak's face that the creature's friend carved with one of its foot claws as Squeak used one of hers to cut its belly open, braced on her little arms like raptors wouldn't normally be expected to do. They regard each other, two years after the encounter that ended in the remaining creature running away and leaving the raptor infants to wait for the venom to wear off, and the green thing, now barely tall enough to come up to the raptors' ankles, makes a submissive noise.

Dash and Squeak don't acknowledge it, except by returning to their meal. The creature turns its head between them in jerky twitches a moment longer before doing the same.

With all the fences finally having stopped humming, the raptors have even fewer restrictions in their travels. There are two fenced in areas that it seems nothing needed to break out of, south and southeast of the den. Scents from before the humming stopped have disappeared as much as the giant jaws' has left their forest, but other clues remain. In the relatively narrow fence-cage south of the den, between them and the plains the long-neck runners' herd still frequents, there are some signs—claw marks on tree trunks, even footprints that wind and rain haven't completely wiped away—that indicate perhaps there were once raptors there. It might have been a cage for those raptors, but Survivor and the other young ones don't feel about it as giant jaws apparently does about the forest they've taken over. It's not a bad place for raptors to live in when one can get out, too. They start to sometimes use it as a place to stop at before heading further away from home, or as a place to gather at instead of home. There are good spots there for raptors to nest in, and it's such a shame it doesn't seem like any have, yet.

They don't know who the raptors that used to be caged there were, though they like to think maybe it's a place once inhabited by the parents who first found Survivor, Dash, Dare, and Squeak as hatchlings. It reminds the four young raptors of them, in any case.

They pass by the large human-made cave system near the center of the island sometimes, but only once go inside. It's free of shadow lurkers now, but everything else seems as wary of it as the raptors are, and nothing else has really taken residence, either. Perhaps it's some lingering scent of the lurkers, or more likely that of their charred remains. Eventually both will fade. The four raptors who were born there avoid it because of what it reminds them of, in a different way than the narrow fence-cage full of trees and good places to nest in does.

The one time they enter to explore the caves, they don't stay long, and don't go where their first nest was, because the path to the upper level in the large cave they first go in has collapsed, and the other one they know of leads through the canyon of colorful creatures, and before that the cave where they found their first meal outside the nest. They go in that cave, and find the then-large images of dinosaurs, one of which looks like a raptor, still there on one wall, and the raised level they had to climb onto now easy to reach if there was anything on it they wanted. When one of the two slightly younger ones they have with them suggests continuing to the cave at the back, Survivor decides they've explored enough and should leave. She doesn't know how to explain to them why, but Finder and Triptail understand something in that cave makes the other four sad, and they obey.

Other human-things are not as loaded with memories, and sometimes the raptors explore those.

The one at the shore, south of their forest, has a tall structure at the edge that seems like a way to walk up to get somewhere, but there's nowhere for it to lead except for sitting up there and seeing a bit further. It's made of the same kind of small ledges as the hills inside human-caves are, but it's full of holes like the cages and fences. The structure is narrow, and when the young raptors are almost grown up, it's hard to fit to walk along it side by side, so they take turns who gets to be up.

One time while they're there, Dash and Whirlwind get into a race, running up the structure, jumping down from the top, and then circling around to run up again. Survivor, Squeak, Shredder, and Grappleclaws sit on the wooden objects nearby, and watch the show while they lazily groom each other, until it finally escalates to Dash and Whirlwind bumping into each other's sides the whole way up, and Dash falling off when they reach the top. She lands in the sea below. The others run to the water's edge, and when they see she is alright, they follow her as she swims to the shore where dry land isn't too high off the water for her to climb out, chattering and cackling at her the whole time. It's all in good fun, though, and Shredder and Grappleclaws jump in to swim alongside her half of the way. Satisfied that Dash has someone near in case the running tired her too much, Survivor sits back down. Whirlwind, as the apparent winner of the race, joins in as she and Squeak pick up where they left off in buffing each other's scales.

Other human-places the raptors have found are small shelters scattered around the island, near human-roads, with even smaller chambers in them that have a strange, smooth rock at the back of each. There's one near the gap in the fence around their forest, but it's collapsed, with only the rocks still standing. There used to be water in the hollows in the middle of the rocks, but it became stagnated and then just went away entirely. Dare suggest perhaps they were places humans made to make sure they had somewhere to stop for a drink, which the raptors all decide was quite smart for them. Humans' ways of going about things are very alien and seemingly impractical, and they use so many tools to compensate for their lack of physical abilities like speed, strength, and sharp claws, even being able to simply drink from a pond, that those tools may as well be part of the creature that's human. But as strange as humans are, their ways are something that works for them.

The parents won't go near the big northern human-cave with the young ones, and Survivor and the others sense it's for similar reasons as their avoidance of their birth place. But the one time an expedition team does visit the place, they can't get into the caves, because something has happened to the coverings on the gaps on the walls so they won't open even when you press on the stick. Perhaps humans did something to cause that, the last time they were on the island. The raptors aren't sure why, and it worries them, because if there is something in those caves the humans still want to preserve, they might want to come back for it. Leader decides they should all stay away after that one visit, letting the humans have it if they ever stop by, so maybe they'll do so without incident.

The young ones do their best to learn from their parents' example, and from their mistakes. One day, when Swiftdive is tired from having been part of the hunting team, and Treeclimber happens to snatch the piece of meat she had been about to bite into, a snapping of jaws is followed by another, and then a third, which doesn't miss. The two of them avoid each other the rest of the day, and around nightfall Swiftdive carefully approaches Treeclimber, whose snout has stopped bleeding but whose trust hasn't quite recovered. Awkwardly at first, she grooms him in apology. He eventually accepts it by letting her clean around his throat, but the bite leaves a scar, and it takes longer than that night for the two of them to be about as comfortable around each other as they were before.

The young raptors pay close attention. Swiftdive is precise in her lunges, at prey and packmate alike, and she meant for the bite to connect, but she made sure it wouldn't be a wound serious enough to be dangerous. It has been, though, to their relationship. The three adults may have grown up together, but they have had no one to model their behavior after but each other, and sometimes appropriate handling of situations is learned only after the damage has been done. Their children make note of the technique and restraint to bite force, to avoid serious injury if it comes to that, but they also make note of where the two adults should probably have backed off sooner, to realize a piece of food when there's plenty is nothing to risk their bond over.

Some things the parents learn from the children. The young raptors return from their adventures with new skills, including in communicating their thoughts to each other, whether it's useful for hunting strategies or socializing. Sounds and gestures are found useful and adopted into their vocabulary that the older raptors hadn't thought of, their childhood having been spent in captivity and without adults to teach them the basics to build innovations on top of. For their generation, the basics _were_ the innovation, built on pure instinct. The generation after Survivor and her peers will inherit all they know now, and add their own discoveries.

Three years after its establishing, the pack splits into two. The chicks have grown up, and the parents are incubating a new clutch, so it comes as no surprise when some of the young raptors move to a spot near the southern edge of the forest, inside the narrow former-cage. It seems only natural to all of them who takes charge of the new pack.

The young adults soon have two nestfuls of eggs of their own, which they tend to communally after the example they have grown up with. One clutch is Grappleclaws' offspring and the other Finder's, making all three of the original pack's founders grandparents. The young fathers are an involved part of the lives of their chicks, and the lives of the mothers of their chicks, but there is no question who is the real mate of the head of the new pack.

On a day where everything is as usual, when she is content that everything is as it should be and everyone in their place, that the pack under her command and protection is settled into resting, keeping watch, hunting, and to not needing her supervision at the moment, Survivor lies down for a nap in the soft moss of her nest. At her side, with their tails overlapping in a half-circle and their snouts close together, lies Squeak, and snuggled between them, safe as can be, are their children. The pair and their young lull each other to sleep with gentle, purring trill.

Life stays relatively peaceful on the island for years. Then the humans come back again.

This time there are a lot more of them, and they're no longer so afraid to venture into thickets and forests. The heads of the north and south packs watch together from the lookout cliff as the humans begin capturing some of the plant-eaters, and when Dare and Finder sneak near where they are still staying days later, they see some of the spitters have been caged as well.

The raptors stay hidden as best they can, but they still need to hunt. One day, the northern pack's hunting team doesn't return. The raptors try to keep an eye on the place where humans put their caged dinosaurs, but their packmates don't show up, captured or otherwise, and they realize the humans aren't there just to capture. Whatever it is they want the dinosaurs for, wild Velociraptors don't have a place in their plans.

The humans begin building new caves and dens for themselves, and new fences for big cages. Distance from them and the forest shrinks fast.

Leader and Treeclimber are still mourning the loss of their mate and their grown children, when another hunt goes wrong. This time Leader is gone, too. Whirlwind, the only one to return, can't explain to the others what happened, but they understand she got out alive because Leader held off the humans, and they find out the humans didn't get out of the encounter without casualties, either.

Survivor brings her pack back to her childhood home, and as the new head of the island's raptor family, she has a decision to make.

When the humans capture the giant jaws, she stops stalling and begins to carefully move the pack away from the fenced forest, towards the north where there seem to still be places left to hide in.

At their heels, the buzz of human presence grows louder and closer.


	7. January 2015

The humans have left.

For the first time in her life, Blue is free of their fences and muzzles, and can go where she likes. Part of her just wants to go back in the paddock where life was predictable. It's not an option, and she wouldn't go back to _exactly_ how things were, but what is she supposed to do with her freedom now, without her family?

She isn't completely without a pack, but what's left of her pack isn't with her. Her parents have chosen to go with the other humans—the one who raised her and her sisters from hatchlings, and the other one who came along later but was always so gentle with them (the one she almost attacked before realizing who her target was). Her first parent has a human pack now, she supposes, and that comes first to him because he is a human, even though he has only had them for such a short time.

She isn't sure the parent always understood that she knows he is a human and not a raptor, but of course she did. She isn't sure the parent understood at all why she wanted out of the confinements of the paddock and the lack of control over what will be inflicted on them from outside it. Her parents have protected her in the world ruled by humans that they know better than she does, but she is grown now, and this is her pack, and she is supposed to be able to protect it, including the parents with their lack of claws or tough, scaly hide. All she has ever wanted is for them to trust that she would.

But it turns out, she couldn't. Life in the paddock was small, and safe, and she was so unprepared.

It was a bad decision, trusting the strange, big raptor, and inviting her into the pack just because she was a raptor and wanted rid of the humans using Blue and her sisters as shields against her as much as Blue did. Or maybe it was that she didn't make clear enough that some humans they are only annoyed at, at the moment, and how that's different from that they want the other humans dead. Maybe she didn't make clear enough to the bigger and stronger creature that _Blue_ is in charge, and that a pack works _together_. Maybe she should have trusted the humans instead, and gone along with treating the big raptor as an enemy because they said she was. Maybe if she had done that, Delta, Echo, and Charlie would still be alive, and they would still have their parents with them.

It isn't guilt she feels, exactly, but she will not make the same mistake again, whichever of those the mistake was. Not that it matters, because there isn't going to be a second chance to make it.

Blue wanders through the night, hyper-aware of all the dangers that could be around her, resisting the urge to lie down where she is and not care if something gets her. She may be the only one left, but she will _be_ left for a long time still.

She doesn't go back to the paddock. Perhaps one day she will, just to check on it, but she knows it's not safe without the parents that made it safe, with all the big things out here that have no problem getting into the paddock while Blue has no way of getting out again. It may not smell of her pack anymore when she returns to it. Maybe that's for the best, or she might not leave it.

After a while, she stops, and considers what she is doing. She realizes that in her desperation for company, she is following the trail of the one with giant jaws and small arms. What would she think of Blue showing up? They parted on good terms after the battle, and fought together when they had a common enemy, but now that truce might be revoked, and the giant jaws is hurt, which might make her all the more hostile towards another predator. Alone, Blue might be non-threatening enough to put up with. With a pack, she might be intimidating enough to avoid conflict with. She has too little experience in the world outside captivity to judge which is correct, and decides the smartest thing to do is not trying her luck. She can track the giant jaws down later again and observe, if she feels the need to, and decide whether she could be befriended. In the mean time and as much as she can, Blue will stay out of her way.

She continues in a different direction, seeking a place to hide and rest in.

She is used to human-made structures, and finds some measure of comfort in them, but she avoids the ones humans have been in recently, and follows roads from the cover of the forest to an area almost devoid of their scent. To any other predators, where humans have been will smell like prey, and she doesn't want to be found asleep by something hunting and hungry. She walks along an old, overgrown fence of wires, and comes to a large gap torn into it long ago. At the other side opens a thick forest, and at the base of the incline into it Blue finds one of the things humans use to move fast, only this one hasn't been moving in a long time. She notes it could work as shelter from rain, but that isn't what she needs, so after drinking from the stream nearby, she continues.

Not long after, she finds a glade surrounded by tall trees that should keep predators bigger than herself away. Conveniently for noticing smaller threats, it's on raised ground.

Inside the glade, are ruins of a lost society.

Blue sniffs at the ground and the air, pokes at what she finds with her snout and claws, and stares at the scratchmarks on the tree roots. The scent of those who lived here has long since disappeared, but the part of Blue that has stayed the same since the late Cretaceous and the last time Velociraptors were cloned on these islands, recognizes the place as a nesting site of her kind. She wants to dart back into the woods and seek out the raptors who lived here, bark out calls into the night until her throat hurts as much as her bruised ribs do, but she knows they are long gone. She is only three years old herself, and doesn't know how long the humans have been on the island before her hatching, but she can tell no one has laid eggs here in years.

She curls up at the center, then gets up and goes to a niche between two large roots instead. She has slept without her sisters cuddled up to her before, but knowing they're not even nearby makes her seek out something, even useless tree bark, to feel against her back. The forest isn't silent, but she misses the chatter and bickering that she used to be annoyed to wake up to.

She misses Charlie, who could be such a brat when she wanted to, and who could get away with being that no matter how she was barely younger than the others, because when she wanted to she could also be so kind and affectionate. She remembers there was another sister in place of Charlie in the very beginning, but then she went away, and a while later Charlie was brought into the pack, small and vulnerable, so Blue made sure the others wouldn't bully her as they got used to each other and Charlie grew to eventually catch up to them in size. Charlie admired her so much, and she wanted to live up to that.

She misses Delta, who was always so dependable, even when she did things on her own without asking and talked back to Blue when she wasn't happy with her handling of things. She could always be counted on to get things done and not do anything Blue wouldn't without permission. Sometimes Blue suspected maybe Delta was stronger and even smarter than her, but she was happy being in Blue's shadow rather than the center of attention. She would bite first and ask questions later more readily than Blue did, but she seemed to always know when she had room to do so without actually causing harm that she didn't want to cause, while Blue would rather be too careful. Even when she didn't take it, Blue valued her advice.

She misses Echo more than she has sometimes thought she ever could. Ever since they were hatchlings, Echo was the one Blue clashed with the most, both of them strong-willed and competitive. It only got serious once, and Blue did her best then to end it quickly, instead of it slowly escalating to them tearing each other apart, and whether her method was called-for or not, they started understanding each other better after, when Echo's helplessness while recovering made fighting impossible and forced them to remember they did actually love each other. Echo never quite stopped keeping Blue on her toes about her position, though, and never stopped causing trouble. Blue learned to appreciate Echo challenging her where the others obeyed, and Echo learned to take enough responsibility for her stunts not to leave handling the aftermath all to the others. In a way Echo ended up with the toughest position in the pack. She had more duties than Charlie but not as much authority and liberties as Delta, and Blue can see how it felt unfair to her. It _is_ unfair that they barely got to be adults together, a bit calmer and wiser than they were as juveniles, and will never learn to complement each other the way they perhaps could with a few more years' growth.

But Blue can't get them back, and she can't keep hoping she will get her parents back, either. She doesn't know how to be alone, by experience or by nature, but she will learn.

She finally falls asleep, and dreams of having a pack to protect and command. She dreams of having her sisters and parents back no matter how much she can't, even of being able to connect with the big raptor after all and get along. She dreams of meeting new raptors someday, somewhere, perhaps even finding a mate and raising young.

Tomorrow she will learn to be a solitary raptor. For now she'll stay in this place raptors like her once made into their home, because those raptors considered it a good spot for a reason, and perhaps that reason still applies. But tonight she is staying most of all because here, surrounded by evidence of raptors like her living and thriving outside captivity, she doesn't feel quite as much like she is the last one left.


	8. June 22 2018

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter by popular demand of my conscience.

A sound from the cluster of cages startles her.

There is a lot of noise around her—humans and dinosaurs yelling, cages and the floating vessel clanking, the mountain rumbling ever louder. This one sound among them is not something she expected to hear. She looks around her as much as she can without moving too much.  
  
No one is missing.  
  
Of course, that isn't entirely true. They have lost so many, trying to escape the humans and be careful not to give them reason to believe there are any more raptors to seek out. They hid so well that most of the island became an unknown territory to them in return, for years and years. When they realized the humans had really, finally left, the mountain woke up and their troubles weren't over yet after all. It has been a long time since any of them have felt safe enough to nest and add new members to the pack, and their numbers have only dwindled.  
  
She hears the sound again, louder this time. Every raptor she knows of having still been on the island is with her, but there is one more somewhere in those cages, calling out in distress.  
  
Has the raptor been on the island with them the whole time after the humans left, and their paths never crossed? They have stuck to their tiny territory, and to their way of life as skulking shadows. Perhaps an entire other pack turned up on the island at some point, without them knowing about it.  
  
They don't question where the raptor came from. Humans brought their parents to the island in a floating vessel like this one. It's how they know sneaking aboard is a way out of their increasingly less livable home now.  
  
The raptor sounds hurt. The pack huffs restlessly as they survey their surroundings for a route to go to the lone raptor's aid, but find none that won't get them noticed. They barely have room to move at all without disturbing the large membrane they have crawled under. They're in a darkened corner under a raised walkway, unlikely to be in the humans' way. The membrane is the kind humans have put on some of the cages, though, and there's no quarantee it'll stay discarded in their corner. It's not a good hiding place, but it's the best they could find.  
  
She wonders what has happened to the raptor. The destruction caused by the mountain is an easy guess, but the humans' presence makes her suspicious of their involvement. If they have hurt the raptor, why haven't they finished the job already? She knows full well how deadly humans can be when they want to be, weak and edible though they seem.  
  
She remembers humans killing her packmates, but she also remembers humans gently holding her in their then-large hands and cleaning and feeding her when she hatched. Humans are strange. They have caged but not killed the other dinosaurs, too—even the giant jaws is here. Perhaps the humans are actually helping the raptor.  
  
She isn't sure why that would be true, but she hopes it is, and if she gets the chance she will find out. She also remembers humans leaving her soon after she was out of the egg.  
  
As the sun sets outside, Survivor begins her sleepless night of waiting and keeping careful watch for the moment the vessel arrives at another shore, and for a chance for them to get out without being caught—without being noticed, too, if all goes well. At her side, where she can always be found, Squeak is just as alert, as they analyze the humans' behavior, and shield between and behind them their children and their pack, knowing that for their sake they can't take too many avoidable risks. They don't know yet what they will do if they are found out before they can get out, because they don't know yet what the humans will do if that happens. The lone raptor being alive to make noise with the humans around gives them hope.  
  
If they can, they will take the raptor with them when they escape. If they can't, Survivor hopes the raptor will find a way to safety anyway, and perhaps even to her pack, somewhere out there in the place they are going to.  
  
She is twenty-five years old. She doesn't know she is the oldest a creature of her kind has lived to be since the last time Velociraptors disappeared from the world, but she is alive, and so is what's left of her family, and now she knows there are even raptors still alive that haven't grown up with her family. She is going to do what she can to make sure her kind stays in the world for a long time still.  
  
At the other side of the cargo hold, Blue does her part by clinging to life as a bullet is pulled out of her side and her bleeding stanched, comforted by the touch of a pair of human hands that she was once small enough to be held in.  
  
Now they all wait to see what comes next, and continue clinging to life.

**Author's Note:**

> I basically turned [this blog post](https://iperyys.blogspot.com/2019/05/raptors-out-of-containment-on-isla.html) into a fic.
> 
> You can consider this a prequel to [The Three of Them](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774273), which takes place after Fallen Kingdom and also deals with raptors out of containment, though not Survivor's pack, because I wrote that story before this one.
> 
> The behavior of the raptors in this fic isn't intended to be 100% scientifically accurate, as Jurassic Park raptors aren't 100% scientifically accurate, instead I went for plausible for the animal we see in JP/W canon material (and borrowed some from my knowledge on wolves and feral cats as social animals with communities more closely resembling what's shown to us about a JP/W raptor pack than many social birds' communities do). That animal is also probably not what we call Velociraptor in the real world; JP raptors were originally based on Deinonychus, and are not quite accurate to that dinosaur, either. But it's called "Velociraptor" in canon, so whatever real or fictional, intensely social, large dromaeosaurid the clones are modified versions of, that dinosaur is apparently called Velociraptor in the alternate universe the JP/W franchise's story takes place in, so that's what I called them.


End file.
